School of Industrial Design Proposal 

Feasibility of Using XR Technologies for Usability Testing in Service Design in Critical Physical Environments Thesis Keywords XR, Usability testing, Service design 

A Thesis Proposal Presented to the School of Industrial Design 

Graduate Committee

By Hiroshan Weerawardana P A 

Master of Industrial Design Candidate 2023 

In Partial Fulfillment of the 

Requirements for the Degree

Master of Industrial Design in the 

School of Industrial Design, 

College of Design 

Georgia Institute of Technology

Monday, April 17, 2023 

9:30 am – 10:30 am(EST)  

Arch West 155 (in-person) 

 Primary Advisor Dr. Leila Aflatoony, School of Industrial Design 

Committee Members Tim Purdy, School of Industrial Design 

Dr. Young Mi Choi RCA

Proposal

Introduction Extended reality is the umbrella term for the fields such as Augmented reality (AR), Virtual reality (VR), and Mixed reality (MR). Before the introduction of XR, the most common interaction method available for the digital interface was on a screen through a window. With VR the user has the possibility to immerse into the virtual world and interact with it. In AR it is possible to map the digital interfaces over the physical world and MR uses a combination of AR and VR.

Earlier the accessibility for XR was extremely limited both economically and technologically but now it is becoming more and more accessible for the general user. As a result, it can be seen that more industries and personal users are adapting to this technology. Since this technology and the user interaction methods are much different from most of the technologies that existed earlier, previous knowledge on human technology interaction knowledge has become invalid and there is a gap in knowledge regarding how to develop the user experience for XR and on the design related utilitarian potential of XR. 

Service design is an emerging field in design, and it is mainly concerned with how the experience in service and a system can be developed. Unlike many other design fields, service design mostly concerns intangible aspects such as how users experience, feel, understand, and execute a necessary task. There is an opportunity to study the application of XR in service design and this research intends to study the feasibility and the benefits of using XR for usability testing in Service design.

Lately, service design has been playing an important role in the healthcare industry. Healthcare industries have been getting service designers to improve the experience of both patients and service workers. As in any other public place wayfinding for visitors, guiding, and crowd handling play a critical role to maintain the daily tasks. An efficient service design could manage the crowd and guide the patients towards the correct location while maintaining a good mental state. Through this research study mainly intends to find solutions for the following research questions in a healthcare